Tower Green

Tower Green is a space within the Tower of London where two English Queen consorts and five other British nobles were executed by beheading. The Tower Green is located on a space south of the Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula. Beheading in the privacy of the Tower Green was considered a privilege of rank; the executed were spared insults from jeering crowds, and the monarch was spared bad publicity. Other prisoners in the Tower were executed in public on Tower Hill just outside the fortress, or at Tyburn on the other side of the city. In the middle of the Green is a small square plot paved with granite, which shows the site on which stood the scaffold on which private executions took place. The granite paving was specially created by order of Queen Victoria.cite book
author=Parnell, Geoffrey; Lapper, Ivan
title=The Tower of London: A 2000 Year History (Landmarks in History)
publisher=Osprey Publishing (UK)
location=
year=
pages=
isbn=1-84176-170-2
oclc=
doi=] cite book
author=Staines, Joe; Rob Humphreys; Judith Bamber; Sean Bidder; Charles Campion; Jane Czyzselska; Val Humphreys
title=The Rough Guide to London (Rough Guide London)
publisher=Rough Guides Limited
location=
year=
pages=
isbn=1-84353-093-7
oclc=
doi=]

History

During the Middle Ages, the area was used as a burial ground As a result of relaying the 19th century granite cobblestones, shallow excavations of the foundations revealed remains of a building that sat on that site. Historic plans of the Tower of London show a building at the site of the tower Green. It was demolished in 1684, but was rebuilt in 1685. It was removed once again soon thereafter. It appears that the building was used at the time as a guardhouse for the predecessors of the Yeomen Warders.cite web
url=http://www.hrp.org.uk/NewsAndMedia/Pressresources/JacobianLife.aspx
title=Evidence of Tudor and Jacobean Life uncovered at the Tower of London
accessdate=2008-02-13
format=
work=] The executions at the Tower Green were done inside this building to maintain the privacy of the nobles. [cite journal|author=ParnellG|date=1979|title=Observations on Tower Green|journal=London Archaeologist|volume=3|issue=12|pages=320–326]

Executions

The following nobles are known to have been executed on the Tower Green:

#William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings, by order of the Richard, Duke of Gloucester, in 1483.
#Queen Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII, 19th May, 1536.cite book
author=Denny, Joanna
title=Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England's Tragic Queen
publisher=Perseus Books Group
location=Cambridge, Mass
year=
pages=317
isbn=0-306-81474-9
oclc=
doi=]
#Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, the last of the Plantagenet dynasty, by order of Thomas Cromwell on 27th May, 1541.cite book
author=Pierce, Hazel
title=Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, 1473-1541: loyalty, lineage and leadership
publisher=University of Wales Press
location=Cardiff
year=2003
pages=
isbn=0-7083-1783-9
oclc=
doi=]
#Queen Catherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII, by a Bill of attainder on 13th February, 1542.cite book
author=Weir, Alison
title=The six wives of Henry VIII
publisher=Grove Weidenfeld
location=New York
year=1991
pages=475
isbn=0-8021-3683-4
oclc=
doi=]
#Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford, by order of Henry VIII on 13th February, 1542.cite book
author=Julia Fox
title=Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford
publisher=Ballantine Books
location= [New York
year=
pages=
isbn=0-345-48541-6
oclc=
doi=]
#Lady Jane Grey, the "Nine Days Queen", wife of Lord Guilford Dudley, by order of a special commission for High treason, on 12th February 1554.cite book
author=Plowden, Alison
title=Lady Jane Grey: nine days queen
publisher=Sutton
location=Stroud
year=2003
pages=
isbn=0-7509-2816-6
oclc=
doi=]
#Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex for treason on 25th February, 1601.cite book
author=Lacey, Robert
title=Phoenix: Robert, Earl of Essex: An Elizabethan Icarus
publisher=Phoenix Press
location=London
year=
pages=
isbn=1-84212-285-1
oclc=
doi=]

Each of these individuals were all beheaded with an axe save for Anne Boleyn who was beheaded with a sword. The bodies of all seven were buried in the Chapel of St. Peter.

References